Love Beyond Sight (3 page)

He slipped quickly into a coffee shop. Not much else was open at that hour and he considered himself lucky to have found anything at all. If he could, he would have stayed home to handle Eden's needs but blowing the demon out of her mind had required fresh air. If he had to be outside, where he could be seen, it was better if he kept moving; that way none of his neighbors got too suspicious about him. He wouldn't have a repeat of the problems he'd encountered in Cleveland. The nights he'd spent in jail barely holding onto his facial features had been a disaster.

Never again
.

The cigarette burned down to the butt and burned his fingers. He flicked it to the ground. He might get ten extra minutes from the nicotine in his bloodstream. It's not like the cancer sticks could kill him. His kind didn't get sick like that but cigarettes were still disgusting and the fact that he had to smell the smoke on his clothes for the rest of the day was not going to improve his mood.

Not that anything could
.

His face itched. If he touched the skin, it would peel right off. He dug his fingers into his palms to give himself a new sensation to concentrate on as he searched around the shop for someone who would suit.

Looking up in quick spurts, he grabbed a newspaper from the bin and headed to the cashier to pay for it. There weren't a lot of people to choose from in the place; he had no time to dither. He'd been ugly before, the thought didn't disturb him if that was what it came down to, and the Fates knew his actual face was the stuff of nightmares.

He could still remember the screams…

Shoving that thought from his head with the same force he might use to stop a train from slamming into him, he spotted his target. The whole situation felt mildly amusing. Once upon a time, he'd actually felt guilty for having to do this type of thing. Now? Nothing. Not even a smidgen of remorse for his task at hand.

Eden needed him to stay alive so he would for as long as it took to protect her. Then he'd see about ending it. He wouldn't die lying supine on a hospital bed. Samuel would see to it that he went down in flames, keeping the woman he loved, but could never have, safe in his wake.

He jerked to the left bumping into the man behind him hard enough to jolt the poor fellow without making him spill his coffee. Samuel's movements were all about the right push, the lightest of touches. He'd had a lifetime to perfect his game.

"Hey man, watch it."

The man sounded way too annoyed for five in the morning. Samuel took a good look at him. With beet red eyes, Samuel would place bets that the dude was just getting home—not getting up in the morning. Blond haired and blue eyed with half-a-day's worth of stubble on his cheeks, he looked to be in his mid-thirties. He needed to take better care of himself, stop the hard nights of partying. But Samuel's mark's personal life was none of his business and he wasn't going to worry about the other man's health.

He had enough on his plate.

Samuel smiled. The guy had a good face. He'd be glad to borrow it for a week.

So quickly that most people wouldn't even know he'd grazed his fingers over their face, he tapped the man's chin.

"Sorry, dude." He grinned and paid for his paper. The hung-over man would have a headache for a few hours, but maybe he already did. As for Samuel, he'd have a face for the next week that would allow him to walk the streets undisturbed until it faded.

He exited the coffee shop, his cheeks already tingling. His Outsider magic wanted to make the shift right away but that wasn't going to work for him this time. He needed to be far far away from the man whose face he now copied. Best-case scenario, he would be home. But at the very least he needed to not be the same room with the owner of his new features.

Samuel picked up his pace. The wet ground beneath his feet splashed as he moved. Each step taking him closer to his goal of finally getting some relief from his agony. He rounded the corner to his apartment building and looked down at the ground. The skin on his face had started to peel. Soon, the old layer would disappear revealing his new look underneath. It was absolutely pivotal none of his neighbors ever got a really good look at his face.

He pushed his baseball cap farther down on his head. When he'd left his home, he'd been a brunet and he was coming home a blond.

Rushing around the corner, he got his key in the door and his body inside of his apartment in record time. In two seconds, he'd thrown the hat onto the couch as he rushed into the bathroom. It helped if he scrubbed his skin while the change happened. Somehow, it made it less gross to peel the dead skin off his face with warm water instead of by ripping the skin from his face.

Grabbing the unscented soap from the side of the sink, he splashed himself with the hot water before lathering up his face. The skin started to peel the second he touched it. Goosebumps broke out on his arms, and he tried not to wretch. He hated this feeling more than anything else about his situation.

Piece-by-piece, inch-by-inch the fake skin his magic had created began to slither off his face and deposit in the sink.

"Shit."

No one was in his apartment, ever, so it wasn't like he couldn't curse all he wanted. But his mother had raised him to be a gentleman. Swearing like a sailor still made him feel like he was about to have his mouth washed out with soap.

Finally, the constant peel stopped. He stared down in the sink to see what damage he'd done. His hands shook as he opened up the drain to let the discarded skin swish down the pipes.

This had been a close one. He should have switched his face before he'd let his mind travel into Eden's. That would have been the smart thing to do. Except that Eden had needed him. He'd barely gotten to that demon in time as it was.

Grabbing a towel, he forced his eyes to meet his reflection in the mirror. Once every seven days he got to meet a stranger in his bathroom. The man in front of him, minus the red eyes and sour expression, resembled his co-customer from the coffee house exactly.

With pressure to change gone, he let himself examine the features he would have as his own for, hopefully, a full week. Unless he had to use too much magic again and then he'd be replacing the current ones for a new set in less time. The thought exhausted him and he ran his hand through his now blond hair. Before the fire he'd had what his mother had called golden-brown hair. Basically, it had been brown with streaks of blond intertwined with the strands. It had been so long since he'd seen it; he couldn't remember the exact color anymore.

Oddly enough, he'd been coping with this problem for so long that the thought that he'd never see himself again as he'd once been didn't even make him sad. He just felt… nothing.

But his new features were fine. They'd be pleasant to look at for a while, not startling or disturbing. His nose was long but not so big that it looked like it didn't belong on his face. Not like the time he'd taken the face of someone who'd had a nose job and scared the crap out of himself when he'd seen the dude's old, hawk-like nose staring back at him. His magic, he had learned that day, didn't accommodate personal alterations.

This nose was fine. It would probably be called aristocratic. He wasn't exactly sure about that. His chin was long with a cleft in the center and his cheekbones were high. The new ears didn't poke out too much, which was good. Samuel didn't particularly enjoy feeling like Dumbo. His blue eyes were clear and strong.

He shook his head to see how his hair would fall and found that his current state, basically messy and unruly, would have to remain. The new guy's hair didn't cooperate to change.

"That was close." His voice sounded rough, probably from the disgusting cigarette he'd just smoked. Clearing his throat, he walked to the window and leaned his forehead against it. The glass felt cool and he took a few moments to try to center himself against the sensation. That had been too close of a call—too damn close.

Eden. He could picture her face in his mind's eye. Samuel had only seen her once in person. She'd been walking with her family through the streets of Boise, handing out pamphlets on God and the apocalypse. He'd already known a ton about her, having walked through her mind hundreds of times since they'd been children. She hated the ordeal of talking about God, always afraid a member of her family was about to start raving that she'd been possessed by Satan.

Samuel had stood up; ready to approach her, ready to tell her who they really were and that she belonged to him. He'd take her away. Somehow, she'd deal with the fact that his appearance had to alter every week. They were soul mates. Then his skin had started to itch. He could still remember the horror of the feeling. What had been the matter? In anticipation of meeting her, he'd changed his face the day before. There was no way it should have needed to be replaced so fast. Darting to the left, he'd found a person whose features he could steal and ran back to his hotel room.

The truth had dawned on him as he'd scrubbed the skin from his cheeks. Being in Eden's presence required too much magic from him. If he was near her, he couldn't maintain his illusions. As much as he'd hoped Eden could deal with the face changing, he had no doubt she would not be able to handle the real him. He could barely deal with it. His own parents hadn't been able to stand looking at him. They acted like the very sight of his profile burned their eyes.

No way would he do that to his soul mate. She needed his help more than she needed his presence.

So he stayed away. Beautiful, strawberry blonde Eden with her round luscious ass so perfect for squeezing that his hands ached to touch her there. An intimate pat only he'd be allowed to give. She was a strong, capable woman who had battled her own abilities for so long, in order to stay alive, she could hardly control them now. He wanted to kiss her soft lips, to tell her, in person, that she'd get it together, that ultimately she'd save them all.

Except he'd never get the chance to do so. And the demon had almost gotten to her because he'd been so sound asleep he hadn't heard her pain until it had been almost too late to expel Sebastian from her mind.

"Eden." Sometimes he spoke aloud simply to hear the sound of his own voice and if that made him crazy, there wasn't a thing he could do about it.

He needed to do some work soon. His job working as an editor for instructional manuals made his brain ache with boredom but he didn't have to see anyone to get it done. He could work from whatever location he rented and no one was the wiser that he didn't look the same from week-to-week. His checks were deposited into the same account without him ever having to see a bank teller. The computer age had made Samuel's life a lot simpler.

Tapping his fingers against the window, he sought her mind. One last touch before the day had to begin. One last glimpse of what heaven on earth should have been for him would have to sustain him for the rest of the day while he added grammatical comments to the instructions for the use of a toaster oven.

He opened up his mind and he could feel his consciousness escape his body. Without a doubt, he knew where he'd end up—in Eden's mind. That was where he always traveled. She pulled him like the end of a magnet he felt powerless to avoid. Not that he would ever want to go anywhere else.

His eyes snapped open as his mind arrived in Eden's. After a few seconds of tugging, Samuel was able to manipulate his magic to go where he'd like it to the last few times he'd visited—right next to wherever she stood. Right now, it looked like the kitchen. Very different than his own abode—which he decorated for quick escapes and functionality—the kitchen in the Outsider lair held neat things like a cat clock that meowed every hour and place mats that matched seating cushions. The room looked to be the kind of place he could spend a lot of time relaxing in. He didn't even try to push down the envy that made his hands shake. What would be the point in suppressing the feeling?

Eden sighed and leaned back against the black wicker chair on the left side of the table. They only had eight matching seats. They'd have to find more chairs if they ever located all their soul mates. Except that they never would—because he could never present himself.

"Want to tell me what happened, now?" Samuel looked over to where Marina stood, leaning up against the counter, which held a coffeemaker, toaster oven, and blender. He grinned as he realized he'd written the manual for the blender. It wasn't a great model, sometimes it overflowed for no reason, but that hadn't been his job to point out. His guess would be that it occasionally made whoever used it really, really nuts.

"I've already told you. The demon was in my head. He taunted me, said he was going to torture me, kill me. The same stuff he says to all of you."

She shrugged like it didn't matter, like she hadn't been utterly terrified when he knew she had been. Why was she hiding her feelings on this? Samuel reached out with his mind and stroked the side of her face. Eden didn't react, she never did. If he spoke to her, she could actually hear him even though others could not. Other than actual vocalization, she remained completely unaware of his presence.

"Then he was expelled from my mind."

Marina scratched the side of her face. "That's where you lose me. How did that happen? Because I know I didn't do it and, as far as I know, I'm the only one capable of doing that."

Samuel rolled his eyes. Marina seemed to be a good person. She worked hard, loved her fellow Outsiders but boy could she be cocky sometimes. They all had a slew of powers. Why would the woman assume she was the only one able to do anything at all?

"
He
did it."

Samuel turned to face Eden. She looked lovely with the morning sunlight drifting in under the yellow curtains that blocked the windows in the kitchen. Her skin, a shade just darker than porcelain, showed the dark circles under her eyes—the only indication he could see of just how badly she'd been sleeping. He'd tried to hold her, like he stroked her now, but it hadn't helped her dreams.